10 awesome allotment blogs

There’s an allotment revival going on at the moment. And it’s no wonder. Growing your own helps you eat better and cheaper, get fit, and spend quality time outdoors with friends and family.

If you fancy grabbing a piece of the ‘good life’ for yourself, then have a nose through these awesome allotment blogs. With practical how-tos, delicious homegrown recipes and inspirational pictures, they’ll make an allotmenteer of you yet.

Ever wondered if you should break the rules when it comes to bulbs or asked yourself how to deal with ‘June drop’? Michelle, the green fingers behind Veg Plotting, has all the answers. This allotmenteer and ‘subversive soprano’ from Wiltshire has been tending her plot since 2003, when her husband’s illness inspired her to grow good, honest fayre for her family.

Fifteen years on, Michelle grows pretty much everything. Veg Plotting is a wonderful mix of advice, inspiration and humour. You’ll find a wealth of tutorials and some magnificent recipes including allotment soup and figgy cheese tart.

It all started in the ‘80s with a single plot on a West Yorkshire allotment. As growing went out of fashion and neighbouring plots became vacant and overgrown, Sue and her husband took another plot, then another, and so on, until they ended up with five!

Sue is now the oracle on all things allotment-based. She generously shares growing techniques and top tips with her readership; such as why you should always leave slug-nibbled berries on the plant. Plus there are garden sudokus for rainy days and ‘young seedlings’ ideas to get the children hooked on growing.

Flighty is pleased as Punch with his Polka Dot cornflowersImage: Flightplot

Flighty’s Plot is tended by Mike: ‘allotmenteer, armchair gardener, blogger and sofa flyer’. Mike took over his allotment in 2007 and instantly fell in love with growing, getting to know the local wildlife and regular chat with fellow plot holders. Indeed, reading Flighty’s Plot feels a lot like chatting to an old friend.

Let Mike keep you up to date with the progress of this season’s crops and his close encounters with Foxy. When he’s not tending his allotment, Mike can be found on the sofa with a good book and a nice cup of tea. Our kind of chap.

Ness is the CBO (Chief Baking Officer) at JibberJabberUK, a blog about growing, cooking and baking for the family. The family started their allotment adventure to take control over how their fruit and veg were grown. They have certainly succeeded!

With monthly allotment updates and fantastic photography, this blog will show what can be done with a little imagination and a lot of hard work. And once you have harvested your goodies, be sure to check out Ness’s recipes such as her rhubarb, lemon and ginger friands.

Follow these beauties as they journey from allotment to breakfast tableImage: Agents of Field

Sophie and Ade are the Agents of Field and their mission is to save the Earth ‘one forkful at a time’. Their superpowers are sustainability, thriftiness and some very green fingers. And with twenty years of film and TV production between them, their blog is bursting with beautiful images and witty words.

So dive in and let horticulturalist Ade show you how to battle aphid invasions and upcycle just about any old rubbish into vital equipment for the allotment. Then settle down and discover how chef Sophie transforms both crops and weeds into mouthwatering meals. Nettle pesto, anyone?

Richard Chivers is the man behind Sharpen Your Spades. His early growing career was a tempestuous one as he hurtled from one short-lived allotment fling to the next. But in 2015 he settled down with the plot of his life and hasn’t looked back since.

In his blog you’ll find a wealth of goodies from an allotment diary – a record of the frustrations and successes of organic growing – to comprehensive growing guides. Having sharpened his spade in the past, Richard has recently hung it up in favour of the no-dig gardening technique. Intriguing, huh?

Growing doesn’t have to be expensive, time-consuming or difficult, says Paul Cartwright, the Green Fingered Blogger. His posts are always informative and often eccentric. Whether it’s creating a cheap and easy bug hotel, trying to grow watercress on a garden fence and discovering the cure for wisteria hysteria, it’s all worth a read.

Paul is convinced that spending time amongst plants is good for the soul, and we have to say the same about loafing around this blog.

Chelle dreams of having her own smallholding one day. But until then, this gardening rebel is happy tending her plot-and-a-half at the local allotment. She’s the blogger behind Bohemian Raspberry as well as being a mum, horticultural student and gardening addict.

Discover how she transformed the jungle that was Plot 2a into a treasure-trove of taste (it took two weeks and 48 full green waste bags) and follow her delicious tutorials to create delights such as gooseberry pickle.

The granddads Matt Peskett wants to emulate are his very own – Grandad Jack and Great-Grandad George, both head gardeners in their time. And it’s thanks to Grandad Jack that our blogger got his first taste for growing.

We hope these wonderful blogs have inspired you to get growing or even to start your own allotment blog. And if you write about growing we’d love to hear from you. Visit our Facebook page and share a link to your gardening adventures.

2 Comments

Sarah
on September 18, 2017 at 3:00 pm

Some of my absolute favourite allotmenting and blogging heroes in this list. Inspiration for all of us. I’ve recently started an allotmenting blog and hope to be somewhere near as good as these guys in five years time 🙂http://www.growlottygrow.com